by Robin Page
“How are you?” he asks.
“Good,” she says. “Conrad is out of town still, but I’m okay.”
He notices how slow her speech is. She isn’t really engaged. He wonders momentarily if she is on some kind of medication.
“You must miss him,” he says.
“Yes,” she says. “I do.”
“Maybe you could come for dinner. Lucy could work on the park some more. It might make the days until he returns go faster.”
She gives him a brief smile. “We would like that. Thank you. Lucy would especially.”
They stand silently, formally, waiting for the elevator. He looks at her more closely. He wants to say something more. He wants to feel close to her again.
“I was wondering,” he says, trying. “I was wondering if you could possibly do me a favor?”
She does not hesitate at all when she answers. “If I can, I will,” she says. “Of course.”
He watches her watching the floor numbers of the elevator illuminate. She is not looking at him. From this angle, he can see the fine lines around her eyes. Dark circles.
“Are you sure you’re okay?” he asks again.
“Yes,” she says. “Not enough sleep. I never sleep well when Conrad’s gone. Everything sort of falls on me. It’s a mother thing.”
She smiles, but the smile is gone as quickly as it comes.
The elevator doors open. They step inside.
“What is it?” she says. “What favor?”
“I was hoping we could play tennis sometime,” he says. “I haven’t played since I was a boy, and I know you love it, and I used to love it. Could we? Maybe you could reintroduce me to the game?”
“Sure,” she says. A full smile suddenly. “That’s not what I thought you’d ask.”
“What did you think?”
“I don’t know. I just thought it would be more serious. Tennis is, well . . . it’s not exactly a favor.”
“Wonderful,” he says. He is glad that there is a slight opening.
“Do you belong to the Miramar Club?” she asks.
“I don’t,” he says. “But we can go to the rec center at the park.”
“Or,” she says, “you could be my guest.”
“No,” he says. “No. I might be embarrassing. It’s been a while since I’ve played.”
“You’re silly,” she says. “You are welcome to come with me.”
He has the sense that they both know what they aren’t saying. He says it bluntly. “No, I don’t think I’d feel comfortable there.”
She looks down. “Okay,” she says. “I guess I don’t really want to go to the club anyway. It’s been making me kind of miserable.”
“Is it something you would like to talk about?”
“No,” she says. “But tennis with you at the park would be good.”
She is back, he thinks. At least a little. He will not push it. He will be careful with her. She seems a vulnerable creature.
“Tomorrow?” he asks.
“Yes,” she says. “After I drop Lucy at school. I will look forward to it.”
2
THE NEIGHBORHOOD WHERE THE MUSEUM IS LOCATED IS GENTRIFIED, BUT the drive there goes through areas that are not safe. Along the edge of the highway, Simon notices houses that must have, at one time, been grand. Since he is an architect, he knows that white people have tried already to turn this neighborhood, to restore the wood floors and the gaslights and the old ballrooms of these hundred-year-old houses, but West Adams is still, essentially, a ghetto.
Because it is rush hour, traffic on 10 East is like a parking lot. He checks his phone whenever he stops. He counts the lanes—five across at a standstill, including the carpool lane. He has grown used to traffic. It is a way of life in Los Angeles. His car is set up as if it were an extension of his condo. He has a very expensive sound system. There are recorded books, favorite podcasts, old music. The hope is to enjoy the ride, even when he isn’t moving. His car is comfortable, spotlessly clean. The leather seats and wooden dash gleam. In his experience, only white people have dirty cars.
In the lane next to him, in a bright red convertible Mustang, he notices a young man, Hispanic maybe. He is smoking. Even though Simon hasn’t smoked in fifteen years, he considers asking the man for a cigarette. The urge is there. He’d just like a drag, the tiniest bit. He could get up, open his car door, walk over, have a little chat if he wanted. That is how still the traffic is. He taps his fingers on his steering wheel, still looking at the man, enjoying the beat of the song. The tennis with Jocelyn is on his mind. Something to look forward to.
He moves to raise the volume on his radio, a song from childhood, American rap. Joy at first, and then the pressing of violence, inextricable. Impossible to separate it from the music.
He reaches to turn the music off, turn the memory off, and as he does this, he notices out of the corner of his eye, a dog, on the shoulder of the freeway, sitting, perfectly still. He thinks at first that it might be a statue, like the tiny white crosses that mark the early deaths of young drivers. He keeps his focus on it. Is it real? And then it moves.
The dog is lean. His once barreled chest looks like a birdcage. He is what people call a fighting dog. The sort that eats babies and turns on owners. He knows from the news that they fill the pounds and shelters—a pit bull. Simon does not dislike dogs, but he does not like them either. In Rwanda, Claudette wanted a dog. A fact he has forgotten until just now.
He tells himself not to look at the dog, but he can’t help looking. It is regal, even in its diminished state. It is a dog for a king. The king must miss it. Simon’s brain does this sometimes. It starts on an adventure and keeps on going. The traffic doesn’t move. The man in the next car throws his cigarette out the window.
Simon decides that he should do something about the dog. He asks his phone to call animal control, and his Bluetooth does its magic.
A man with a bland voice picks up, assures him they will get the dog. “What exit?” the man asks.
“I don’t know the exact number. I’m on the ten . . . at Arlington . . . by the entrance ramp.”
“Got it,” the officer says, but his tone is dismissive. Simon does not sense that he is writing the information down.
“You understand it is a traffic hazard,” Simon says to the man on the phone. “I mean what if the dog rushes out onto the freeway?”
He looks at the dog again. Rushes? No way could it rush. The dog is lying down now. He can’t stop staring, wondering. How are these things abandoned? How does that happen to a dog, to a beloved house with a ballroom, to a child, to a man? In flowing traffic, he would not have noticed it. Traffic does not flow here. Life makes us see.
“We’ll take care of it,” the man on the phone says.
“Thanks,” Simon says.
3
THE NEXT DAY, HE AND JOCELYN GO TO THE PUBLIC COURTS BY THE library, which are clean but worn. They cost eight dollars an hour, which he insists on paying. She has some sort of membership, even for the park system, so she reserves the court. She still looks a bit undone, but he has the sense that the game and the sport, the very sweat of it, will be good for her.
They warm up and he can tell immediately that Jocelyn is good, but not good enough to beat him. Women cannot generally beat men. She is fast and smart, but he has power and experience. He likes to watch her run around. He likes that she thinks she can win against him and never gives up. He hasn’t played tennis in many years, and it is exhilarating.
As a boy, he and Abrahm played in an empty swimming pool. The pool had belonged to a government man in his sector, but the man had lost favor and was later killed. There was an abandoned house there too. The two of them pretended it was their own. They danced in an empty dining room, listened to the Sugarhill Gang. They had sex with girls there too, and earlier in their lives, they had even touched each other, exploring which touches felt best. They played soccer in the large garden—balls made of banana leaves. He remembers t
he slow, meditative act of wrapping them. He and Abrahm were like live wires: they never shut down. His very best friend—a Hutu. He, a Tutsi. The difference didn’t matter for the longest time.
Before they finish two sets, he calls it. He is not a young boy anymore.
“That’s it,” he says to her. “I’m too tired. We have to do this again.”
“Okay,” she says. She walks to the net, shakes his hand. “Nice playing,” she says.
“Thank you,” he says and kisses her gently on the cheek.
She smiles. The kiss is platonic. The ball and the racquet have touched a part of who he once was. They walk off the court together. He drops his water bottle. It rolls away from him. He goes to retrieve it. He looks up. She is waiting for him.
I have a friend, he thinks. Happy. Something warm settling in him. One that waits for me.
4
THERE IS A PRO SHOP IN THE RECREATION CENTER WHERE THEY PLAY, AND she looks at skirts and tops, and he looks on. He feels as if she is his sister, and he must manage the choices she makes. She tries on a lacey skirt that is see-through, although all that can be seen are shorts. He tells her that the skirt doesn’t suit her, that she is too much of a lady for it. She blushes. He can tell she is pleased at the compliment.
“You have no idea who I’ve been in my life,” she says with a wry smile, and they are oddly intimate again.
In the recreation center, there is a freezer with ice cream sandwiches, chocolate chip cookie bars, and popsicles that are the color of the American flag.
“Shall I buy one for each of us? We can sit and eat them at the park.”
“Yes, please,” she says. The lines around her eyes have lessened. The exercise has reddened her cheeks.
She picks the American flag popsicle, and he picks one called a Firecracker. It is cinnamon flavored and strange. Once outside, they realize they have forgotten napkins, but she has wipes in her purse.
“Consequence of having a little one,” she says. “That and hand sanitizer. I used to see my friends who were mothers with all this stuff and I’d say, ‘Not me! That’s never going to be me. I’m going to be stylish. I’m going to be myself’—and now, look at me.”
There is a kind of longing in her words, as if the words themselves were reaching out to some lost future. Still, he thinks, the day has been a success. She seems happier than she was yesterday in the hall. He picks a bench that faces away from the children playing on the play structure. He cannot take the risk of seeing any little girls that might look like his own after his visit to Cambridge.
“How is Lucy?” he asks. “How is that wonderful child?”
Jocelyn smiles. Pride is palpable in the glint of her eyes. “Good,” she says. “Good. Except she has a new teacher.”
“Is the teacher not nice?”
“Oh no,” she says. “He’s nice, but he’s a man.”
He watches the color drain out of her cheeks.
“I don’t like that,” she says. “I can’t help it.”
In the can’t help it he senses a confession, or maybe self-consciousness. There is more there than she means to say to him. He sighs.
“Yes,” he says. “I understand that.” There is the wolf, the sheep, he wants to say, but thinks better of it. “You will want to keep an eye.”
She looks as if he has taken something heavy out of her arms. Relief and breath come back to her.
“Thank you,” she says. “Thank you so much. Everyone thinks I’m paranoid. Well not everyone. I can’t really talk to Conrad, you know. He’s always working. He’s always very busy, and well, my husband is from a whole different world than I am. Everything went well for him in his life. He had a magical childhood. It’s one of the things I love about him, but he doesn’t always understand. I talked to my friend too. She gets it, but she seems to think I shouldn’t worry. I can’t explain it all. I’m just, well . . .”
“It’s okay,” he says. “It’s our job to protect our children. It is nothing to feel ashamed of. It is tiring though.”
“Exhausting,” she says.
There is a beat of silence.
“I’m probably being silly,” she says.
“Probably,” he says, wanting to sound very confident. “But better safe than sorry.
She licks the popsicle. “These are kind of fun,” she says, assessing it. “There was always an ice cream truck on our street, but we were never allowed.”
“Too much sugar?” he asks, winking at her.
“Too poor,” she says, matter-of-factly. “My mother was mean too.”
They sit enjoying their popsicles for a while, not talking, and then she says, “So tell me about your trip. Was it for fun, or for work, or what?
“I had to meet with an investigator. I received a letter. Have I told you that? Maybe I’ve found my daughter. She claims to be my daughter anyway.”
“Oh my,” Jocelyn says, a bit of blue popsicle drops on her chin. He dabs at it with his wipe, and she pushes his hand away. He does not think that she is averse to him, just sister to brother. “Tell me about it.”
“I didn’t get to meet her. Just him. I will go back though. He gave me pictures. They are surveillance pictures. Nothing up close. It is hard to tell.”
“Does it seem promising?”
“It seems scary,” he says. His voice wobbles. The emotion surprises even him. “This has happened before,” he says. “Last time I was not careful. Last time I wanted it so much. Well . . . that one . . . she wanted my money.” He looks beyond her, at the children kicking a ball in the soccer field. As if the shame of the con could be found out there, in a blade of grass. “This time I will do better, but the hope is hard.”
“Yes, of course,” Jocelyn says. “It would be terrible if it wasn’t her. You don’t want to get invested.”
“Yes,” he says, and then a wavering, “I am afraid it is not her, but then again, I am also afraid it is her.”
The detective’s voice repeats like a record in his head, as if he is a part of their present conversation. She is pregnant, the detective said, as they looked out at the quiet water of the Charles River. If she is your daughter, she is pregnant.
He wants to tell Jocelyn this, but he chokes on it. She reaches out and takes his hand, as if she knows his secret. He remembers his mother walking with him when he was a boy. She was already forty when she gave birth to him. In Rwanda there was so much walking. His hand in his mother’s. The touching of elbows, the shifting of skirts, language everywhere. Her hands were aged. The veins were like tangled laces.
When the Interahamwe came for his mother, they sliced her forearms off first. They hobbled her ankles. She lay alive in the mangrove trees. A mission to get to the next, and the next, and the next. Speed the most important thing to the killers. Alive for a bit. For a long, long time actually. Three days, and three dark nights for the blood to seep out of her completely. The smell of her like something dead on the road. He shudders suddenly. He weeps. The work songs linger. Water in the mouth. Youth. A vision of dwarves in the woods. Disney infiltrating Africa. Off to work we go, hi-ho. We are all children until our mothers die.
He sighs. What is the use? Why fill the chasm? He wishes he could speak to his mother.
“I wish I weren’t so frightened,” he says.
“Yes,” she says. She does not tell him to stop crying. She does not seem to care that he is making a scene in public. “I can see how that would be.”
Chapter Nine
Jocelyn
1
SHE DOES ONE PRIVATE AFTER THEY’VE TOUCHED, BUT IT IS TOO WEIRD. They can’t look at one another. They don’t speak. It all feels off, as if they are stepping on each other, even when they are on opposite sides of the court. She knows they should talk, but how to start the conversation?
“Bye,” she says at the end of the hour, feeling as if she hasn’t even been there, as if the whole experience has happened to some other person.
“Bye,” Kate says.
&nb
sp; She picks up her stuff, heads out. She passes all the other women playing tennis and wishes she could get to that place. Those women are content. Those women are happy. They don’t cry without meaning to.
Group drills, she decides on the drive home. I have to see her, she thinks, but I cannot see her alone. That’s it. That’s the solution. Maybe they can be friends.
A negotiation. Torture. I have to see her. Just not alone.
Nothing else in between.
2
CONRAD COMES BACK FROM LOUISIANA WITH ALL KINDS OF SWEETS. SHE has decided to be the wife of his dreams. She wants to be happy. There is still the thought of Kate, right there, like a pebble in the shoe, but Conrad’s return will be the beginning of something new. A fresh start. Keep it simple. She’s decided.
When he walks in the door from LAX, he drops his suitcases, smiles. Jocelyn has forgotten how handsome he is. He is beautiful, really. Other women always want him, always comment. He calls out to Lucy, and the light that shines from her daughter’s face when she sees her father makes Jocelyn’s heart lift. Kate is momentarily forgotten. Darkness cannot drive out darkness. Only light. She has read this before but can’t think where.
In his left hand, Conrad holds a large paper shopping bag. He reaches inside the bag and reveals a box of candy. The box is almost the size of Lucy. Inside are milk chocolate turtles and pralines, dark chocolate alligators, and white chocolate frogs. There are enough sweets for four children.
“Tortue,” Conrad says to Lucy. He is kneeling in front of her as if he is proposing to her. “It’s French for ‘turtle.’ People speak French in New Orleans. Well, not much anymore, but it’s fun to think about.”
Lucy repeats it with a deeply affected accent. “Are they all for me, Papa?”
